And Now A Message About The Power Rangers

As you may be aware if you pay attention to my ramblings on Twitter or on Super Hero Time, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was shot (mostly) on film and edited on tape, with the final masters on analog tape. (They may have switched to digital SD mastering at some point, but I'm not sure) All Japanese footage (including Zyu1.5, Zyu2, Metalder, Spielban, and Black RX) came from film prints sent from Toei until Gaoranger, which was the first digitally-edited Sentai. Starting with Power Rangers Samurai, the series switched to HD, with Saban using the same camera model that Toei started using with Shinkenger.

Since film for NTSC television is shot at ~24 frames per second (actually 24000/1001 fps), while NTSC itself is ~ 30 interlaced frames per second (30000/1001 fps), you have to get five extra frames for each second to keep the footage at the same speed. This is achieved by using a 2:3 pulldown, which is best explained by Wikipedia. Done properly, this telecine can be undone, giving you the full frames at the original 24fps frametate. This only applies to the raw telecine, and may not be possible when editing includes 30fps effects, bits where the footage is sped up or slowed down, or composite shots where one part of the frame is at a different point in the pattern than the other.

A close look at the Shout Factory DVDs for Power Rangers Zeo through Time Force (I haven't looked at Wild Force or any of the Disney seasons yet) show that the people editing the show did great on a technical level. The telecining itself is perfect (unlike Toei's telecines from the same time, which are a blended mess. For more detail, see AzraelNewtype's Adventures in Encoding post on the Over-Time blog).


Now, Shout's MMPR DVDs are different. Most of the episodes don't have clean telecining, as they are taken from the Saban International masters, and as auch are most likely NTSC>PAL>NTSC conversions. The few episodes that Shout had Saban Entertainment masters, like A Friend In Need Part 1, look as good as Zeo does. However, the Saban Entertainment masters for MMPR have the closed caption bubble and the TV Parental Guideline rating at the start of the opening, which may be why the Saban International masters were used for most episodes. Personally, I feel the better video quality of the Saban Entertainemnt masters more than offsets any annoyance caused by the bubble and ratings box. Unfortunately, Saban didn't think so, or feel it was worth the effort to make a new set of masters that only used the Saban International video for those few seconds of the opening.

Now... Count up your sins! Kamen Rider W BD/DVD raw batch

Now that the cod-E DVD has been tracked down, it's time for a batch torrent.

http://www.nyaa.se/?page=view&tid=519524

Contents:

Bluray:
Kamen Rider W BD Box Sets
Kamen Rider W Returns: Kamen Rider Accel (AKA Police Brutality: Ryu Terui Punches Everything Forever The Movie)
Kamen Rider W Returns: Kamen Rider Eternal
Music Videos from the Video Rider BD sets: WBX ~W-Boiled Extreme~, Nobody's Perfect, W, Love Wars

DVD:
Movie War 2010 Director's Cut
W Forever Director's Cut
W Forever Net Movies
Movie War 2010 Bonus Disc
W Forever Bonus Discs
Special Event
Final Stage and Cast Talk Show
cod-E

All content from the discs is included. HD material is 720p, since 1080p isn't really worth it. The video extras from the DVD volumes were upscaled for the BDs, so I've encoded them in SD. The Hyper Battle Video and Gaia Memory Encyclopedia, surprisingly, are the same quality as the episodes.

Video: 10-bit x264, crf20 for BD, crf19 for DVD
Audio: AAC 50%

Anyone have the cod-E DVD?

The music video DVD for "cod-E ～Eの暗号～" is the one thing from Kamen Rider W left to encode, but I have been unable to find an iso or anyone who has it. Unfortunately, neither of the videos on it were included in the Video Rider sets, so the only option is the out-of-print limited CD/DVD release of the single.

If you have the DVD or an iso of it and wouldn't mind sharing, please let me know 

Got it! Thanks to SirStack for hunting this down.

Shooting and Editing of early Heisei Masked Rider (Or: why Kuuga's DVDs suck)

 So, you may have noticed a vast difference in video quality between Masked Rider Kuuga and the series that came after it. After stumbling across some articles on Toei's website completely by accident, I figured I'd go over the differences in how the series were shot and edited.

Kuuga Method

 Much like Babylon 5, Masked Rider Kuuga was shot in HD, but because of technology and budget constraints, was edited in SD. And like Bablyon 5, they shot in HD so that, at some point in the future when editing in HD was less expensive, they could go back to the HD footage and make new HD masters. And again, much like Babylon 5, this has not yet been done.

Shooting	→	Editing	→	Broadcast/DVDs
1080i		480i		480i

Kuuga's video quality also suffers because the DVDs use analog NTSC-format masters that have horrible dot-crawl and rainbowing. Only the Special Edition DVD has footage sourced from the original digital masters, and it looks MUCH better.

Agito-Blade Method

Chances are, someone at Toei figured it'd be better to just shoot in SD if they were going to edit in SD, and not letterbox anythung until you were making the broadcast masters. Plus, this let them use the wide-screen mode in the DVD release. While this means these shows could never exist in true HD, it let them have better masters at the time than they could using the Kuuga method. Toei finally went back to HD with Hibiki, which was shot, edited, and broadcast in 1080.

Shooting	→	Editing/DVDs	→	Broadcasting
480i		480i		480i

Sources:
http://tvarc.toei.co.jp/tv/agito/making/03-system/index.stm
http://www.toei.co.jp/meister/vol4/detail/05.html

A (Incomplete) Biography of a Clear Plastic Ball with Neon Lights

Name: That One Ball
Natural Habitat: Main room of villain lairs, mecha cockpits, occasionally villain laboratories.
Energy Source: power outlet, ~110V

That One Ball has a long history working with Toei. His first known role was in 1991's Jetman, as a prominent  piece of the Vyram's base, mounted under their funky table.

His role as part of an antagonist's main set continued with 1992's Zyuranger, where he landed a part as a decoration of Bandora's telescope.

To avoid being typecast, his next role was as part of a heroic set: the main mecha cockpit in 1993's Dairanger.

The next year, he had a smaller role in a rarely used lab set in 1994's Kakuranger.

In 1995, he saw more work as part of King Pyramider's cockpit.

After another lean year, he landed a role in 1997's Megaranger, once again part of the villain's main base.

The next year, he had a guest appearance in episode 17 of Gingaman in 1998.

He then returned to his roots, once again having a regular job as part of the Demon's base in 1999's GoGoV.

In an episode of 2002's Hurricanger he was in a closet full of junk int the villain's base.

In 2015, after an absence of 13 years, he made a return in the Nininger/Drive special. Though not turned on and the upper middle tube having fallen over, it was unmistakably him

And the ball seems to be making a comeback, with an appearance in Kamen Rider Ghost's second episode. However, it remains unlit and that tube is still out of place.

So, what does that wall of text mean?

Basically, some series need a DVD9 source more than others. Here's the list: (stuff we already /have/ a DVD9 source of isn't mentioned since we don't need to re-get them)

The Important Stuff (i.e, DVD5s are complete shit):
SENTAI:
Goranger.
GoGoV (Also needed: The Movie, and Vs. Gingaman, both DVD5 releases)

KAMEN RIDER:
Stronger
Kuuga
Agito volumes 4-12
Ryuki
Blade
Hibiki

METAL HEROES:
Shaider disc 2 (from vol 1), volumes 2-4, and disc 9 (from vol 5)

Also wanted: Zyuranger disc 3 (from volume 2). The show was rescanned, but it's the one disc we don't have in DVD9.

Of course, this doesn't mean we don't want DVD9s of other shows (like Gridman. I will  love you forever if you can hook me up with DVD9 isos of Gridman. Or any Metal Heroes. I love me some Metal Heroes.), but they just aren't the MOST WANTED ones.

If you can hook us up with some, either let us know in #sht on rion.net, or comment here

On isos, DVD9s, and encoding

So, I've done a lot of encodes of Toku DVDs over the last couple years. If you've watched them, you'll probably have noticed that some of them look better than others. This is due to three main things: the way the show was made to begin with, the masters Toei used when making the DVDs, and the type of DVDs I have access to.

There are five main type of ways Toei's shot and edited their Toku shows.

Film-shot and edited: Almost the entire show is shot and edited on film. There are video effects, but they were still output to film. The entire show can be rescanned to a nice, crisp, progressive ~24fps master. THis was used for all of Showa Rider, all of Metal Heroes, and all of Sentai from Goranger through Carranger 5.

The second type is where the show is shot in 30i (30 interlaced frames per second, so 60 fields per second). This was used for Kamen Rider from Kuuga through Hibiki, with Kuuga shot in HD and edited in letterboxed SD, Agito-Blade shot and edited in SD, and Hibiki shot and edited in HD.

The third is where the show was shot on film, but edited digitally at 30fps. Most source content is progressive 24fps, but the way it's edited means it finished product isn't.. This was used for Gaoranger through Majiranger.

The fourth is where the footage was shot at 24fps (either film, or digitally), and edited digitally in progressive form. The final product is also mostly 24 progressive frames per second.

The fifth way, used for Carranger 6-Timeranger, is similar to the first, but some of the editing (mostly the OP was done on tape, meaning the finished episode is on tape. And this is pre-2001 Toei, so the transfer looks like ass.

Big factor number 2: the masters used on the DVDs: For series prior to Gaoranger and Agito, the masters used for airing the show were analog tape. These were also used for the DVDs of earlier series. How clean these masters are varies from series to series. From Car episode 6 to the end of Timeranger, there are combed and blended frames all over the place. Older series don't have that problem, but they tend to have a lot of noise. And Kuuga? It's letterboxed to fit in 4:3.
Series with "bad" masters used for DVD are Goranger, Jetman, Carranger (ep 6) through Timeranger, Gavan, Sharivan and Shaider, Kamen Rider X, Amazon, Stronger, and Kuuga.

Later releases were mostly rescanned. These look great. And starting with Agito and Gaoranger, the masters were made with DVD release in mind. They also look great.


Big factor 3: the DVDs we have access to. Most show volumes are released on DVD9. These are dual layer discs., with 9ish GB capacity. However, may isos on the internet were made bu recompressing the DVD9s to fit on DVD5, single layer discs with 5ish GB capacity. No matter what, you lose a lot or detail from this re-encoding. Some series fare better than others. Rescanned series and ones digitally edited at 24fps come out OKish, but unrescanned series and interlaced series suffer the most and are Block City.

So, what does this mean? It means there are some shows that really, really need a DVD9 source to not look like complete shit, while others need them to not look kinda shitty. And recompressed DVD5s are never going to look great.